Missions 
and  Civilization 

By  the  Hon.  William  H.  Taft 


An  Address  delivered  at 
Carnegie  Music  Hall,  New  York, 
under  the  auspices  of  the 
Laymen  s  Missionary  Movement , 
April  20,  1908 


New  York  Chicago  Toronto 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 

•  •  • 

•  •  • 


London 


Edinburgh 


Missions 

nd  Civilization 


By  the  Hon.  William  H.  Taft 


An  address  delivered  at 
Carnegie  Music  Hall ,  Neva  York , 
under  the  auspices  of  the 
Laymen's  Missionary  Movement, 
April  20,  iqo8 


New  York  Chicago  Toronto 


FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


London 


Edinburgh 


I 


Missions  and  Civilization 


Mr.  Chairman ,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

I  have  known  a  good  many  people  who  were 
opposed  to  foreign  missions.  I  have  known 
a  good  many  regular  attendants  at  church — 
consistent  members — perhaps,  that  religiously,, 
if  you  choose  to  use  that  term,  refused  to  con¬ 
tribute  to  foreign  missions.  It  has  been  the 
custom  in  literature  sometimes  to  make  fun 
of  them.  You  remember  in  Dickens  when 
Sam  Weller  came  home,  and  saw  Tony,  his 
father,  and  the  widow  whom  Tony  had  mar¬ 
ried.  The  widow  and  the  Rev.  Stiggins 
framed  an  indictment  against  Tony,  on  the 
ground  that  he  would  not  contribute  any  mon¬ 
ey  to  pay  for  “flannel  waistcoats  and  moral 
pocket  handkerchiefs”  for  little  infants  in  the 
West  Indies.  He  said  they  were  little  hum¬ 
bugs,  and  he  said,  moreover,  in  an  undertone 
to  Sam,  that  he  could  come  down  pretty  hand¬ 
some  for  some  “straight  veskits”  for  some 
people  at  home. 

I  confess  that  there  was  a  time  when  I 
was  enjoying  a  snug  provincialism,  that  1 
hope  has  left  me  now,  when  I  rather  sympa¬ 
thized  with  that  view.  Until  I  went  to  the  Ori¬ 
ent,  until  there  was  thrust  upon  me  the  re¬ 
sponsibilities  with  reference  to  the  extension 
of  civilization  in  those  far  distant  lands,  I 
did  not  realize  the  immense  importance  of  for¬ 
eign  missions.  The  truth  is,  we  have  got  to, 

3 


wake  up  in  this  country.  We  are  not  all 
there  is  in  the  world.  There  are  lots  besides 
us,  and  there  are  lots  of  people  besides  us  that 
are  entitled  to  our  effort  and  our  money  and 
our  sacrifice  to  help  them  on  in  the  world. 
Now  no  man  can  study  the  movement  of  mod¬ 
ern  civilization  from  an  impartial  standpoint, 
and  not  realize  that  Christianity  and  the 
spread  of  Christianity  are  the  only  basis  for 
hope  of  modern  civilization  in  the  growth  of 
popular  self-government.  The  spirit  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  is  pure  democracy.  It  is  the  equality 
of  man  before  God — the  equality  of  man  be¬ 
fore  the  law,  which  is,  as  I  understand  it,  the 
most  God-like  manifestation  that  man  has 
been  able  to  make. 

I  am  not  here  to-night  to  speak  of  foreign 
missions  from  a  purely  religious  standpoint. 
That  has  been  done  and  will  be  done.  I  am 
here  to  speak  of  it  from  the  standpoint  of 
political  governmental  advancement,  the  ad¬ 
vancement  of  modern  civilization,  and  I  think 
I  have  had  some  opportunity  to  know  how 
dependent  we  are  on  the  spread  of  Christianity 
for  any  hope  we  may  have  of  uplifting  the 
peoples  whom  Providence  has  thrust  upon  us 
for  our  guidance.  Foreign  missions  began  a 
long  time  ago.  In  the  Philippines,  in  1565  to 
1571,  there  were  five  Augustinian  friars  that 
came  out  by  direction  of  Felipe  Second, 
charged  with  the  duty  under  Legaspi  of  Chris¬ 
tianizing  those  islands.  By  the  greatest  good 
luck  they  reached  there  just  before  the  time 
when  the  Mohammedans  were  thinking  of  go¬ 
ing  into  the  same  place,  and  they  spread  Chris¬ 
tianity  through  those  islands  with  no  violence 
but  in  the  true  spirit  of  Christian  missionaries. 

4 


They  taught  the  natives  of  those  islands  agri¬ 
culture.  They  taught  them  peace  and  the  arts 
of  peace,  and  so  it  came  about  that  the  only 
people  as  a  body  that  are  Christians  in  the 
whole  Orient  are  the  Filipino  people  of  the 
Christian  provinces  of  the  Philippines,  seven 
million  souls.  I  dwell  upon  this  because  it  is 
the  basis  of  the  whole  hope  of  success  that  we 
have  in  our  problem  in  those  islands.  It  is 
true  that  those  people  were  not  developed  be¬ 
yond  the  point  of  Christian  tutelage.  Those 
old  missionaries  felt  that  it  was  not  wise  to 
expose  those  people  to  the  temptations  of  the 
knowledge  which  European  Christians  have, 
and  so  they  were  kept  in  a  state  of  ignorance, 
but  nevertheless  they  were  Christians,  and  for 
three  hundred  years  have  been  under  that  in¬ 
fluence.  In  this  condition  of  Christian  tute¬ 
lage,  their  ideals  are  western,  their  ideals  are 
European,  their  ideals  are  Christian,  and  they 
understand  us.  When  we  attempt  to  unfold  to 
them  the  theories  and  the  doctrine  of  self- 
government,  of  democracy,  they  are  fit  ma¬ 
terial,  to  make,  in  two  or  three  generations, 
because  they  are  Christians,  a  self-governing 
people.  We  have  the  opportunity  to  know, 
because  we  have  got  a  million  non-Christians 
there — we  have  400,000  or  500,000  Moham¬ 
medans,  and  they  don’t  understand  republican 
government.  They  don’t  understand  popular 
government.  They  welcome  a  despotism,  and 
they  never  will  sustain  popular  self-govern¬ 
ment  until  they  have  been  converted  to  Chris¬ 
tianity. 

I  suppose  I  ought  not  to  go  into  a  discussion 
here  of  our  business  in  the  Philippines,  but 
I  never  can  take  up  that  subject  without  point- 

5 


ing  the  moral.  It  is  my  conviction  that  our 
nation  is  just  as  much  charged  with  the  obli¬ 
gation  to  help  the  unfortunate  peoples  of  other 
countries  that  are  thrust  upon  us  by  fate,  onto 
their  feet  and  to  become  self-governing  peo¬ 
ple,  as  it  is  the  business  of  the  wealthy  and 
fortunate  in  a  community  to  help  the  infirm 
and  the  unfortunate  of  that  community. 

It  is  said  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  Con¬ 
stitution  of  the  United  States  that  authorizes 
national  altruism  of  that  sort.  Well,  of 
course  there  is  not ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  that  forbids 
it.  What  there  is  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  is  a  breathing  spirit  that  we  are 
a  nation  with  all  the  responsibilities  that  any 
nation  ever  had,  and  therefore  when  it  be¬ 
comes  the  Christian  duty  of  a  nation  to  assist 
another  nation,  the  Constitution  authorizes  it 
because  it  is  part  of  national  well-being. 

We  went  into  the  Cuban  War,  and  we  did 
not  go  into  it  for  conquest.  We  went  in  be¬ 
cause  we  thought  there  was  an  international 
scandal  that  ought  to  be  ended,  and  that  we 
had  some  responsibility  with  respect  to  that 
scandal,  if  we  could  end  it  and  did  not  end  it. 
We  passed  a  self-denying  ordinance  with  re¬ 
spect  to  Cuba,  but  we  found  these  other  coun¬ 
tries  on  our  hands.  I  have  been  at  the  head  of 
the  Philippines,  and  I  know  what  I  am  talking 
about  when  I  say  that  the  hope  of  those  is¬ 
lands  depends  upon  the  development  of  the 
power  in  those  islands  of  the  churches  that 
are  there.  One  of  the  most  discouraging 
things  to-day  is  the  poverty-stricken  condition 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  has  the 
largest  congregations  in  those  islands,  and 

6 


every  man,  be  he  Protestant  or  Catholic,  must 
in  his  soul  hope  for  the  prosperity  of  the  Ro¬ 
man  Catholic  Church  in  those  islands,  in  or¬ 
der  that  it  may  do  the  work  that  it  ought  to 
do  in  uplifting  those  people.  Protestant  mis¬ 
sions  in  those  islands  are  doing  a  grand  and 
noble  work.  It  may  be  that  their  congrega¬ 
tions  will  not  be  as  large  as  that  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  It  is  not  to  be  expected ;  but 
the  spirit  of  Christian  emulation,  if  I  may  use 
that  term,  of  competition  between  the  repre¬ 
sentatives  of  the  churches  there,  has  the 
grandest  effect  upon  such  agents  of  all  the 
churches,  and  so  indirectly  upon  the  people; 
and  it  is  the  influence  of  the  church  upon  a 
people  as  ignorant  as  they  are,  and  of  these 
churches  that  hold  up  the  hands  of  the  civil 
governor,  charged  as  he  is  with  the  responsi¬ 
bility  of  maintaining  peace  and  order,  of  in¬ 
ducing  them  to  educate  their  children,  and  to 
go  on  upward  on  the  path  toward  self-govern¬ 
ment.  I  am  talking  practical  facts  about  the 
effect  of  religion  on  political  government.  I 
know  what  I  am  talking  about.  Foreign  mis¬ 
sions  accomplish — I  did  not  know  it  until  I 
went  into  the  Orient — a  variety  of  things. 
They  have  reached  the  conclusion  that  in  or¬ 
der  to  make  a  man  a  good  Christian  you  have 
got  to  make  him  useful  in  the  community  and 
teach  him  something  to  do  and  give  him  some 
sense  and  intelligence.  So,  connected  with 
every  successful  foreign  mission  is  a  school, 
ordinarily  an  industrial  school.  You  have  also 
got  to  teach  them  that  cleanliness  is  next  to 
Godliness,  and  that  one  business  of  his  is  to 
keep  himself  healthful ;  and  so  in  connection 
with  every  good  foreign  mission  they  have 

7 


hospitals  and  doctors,  and  the  mission  makes 
a  nucleus  of  modern  civilization,  with  schools 
and  teachers,  a  physician  and  a  church,  and  in 
that  way  having  educated  the  native,  having 
taugh  him  how  to  live,  then  they  are  able  to 
be  sure  that  they  have  made  him  a  consistent 
Christian.  Of  course,  it  is  said  there  are  a 
great  many  rice  Christians  in  China.  Doubt¬ 
less  there  are.  Chinese  don’t  differ  from  other 
people,  and  they  are  quite  willing  to  admit  a 
conversion  they  don’t  feel,  in  order  that  they 
may  fill  their  stomachs ;  but  the  real  fact  is 
that  every  mission  in  China  is  a  nucleus  for 
the  advancement  of  modern  civilization.  Chi¬ 
na  is  in  a  state  of  transition.  China  is  looking 
forward  to  progress.  China  is  to  be  guided 
by  whom?  It  is  to  be  guided  by  the  young 
Christian  students  and  scholars,  that  either 
learn  English  or  some  other  foreign  language 
at  home,  or  are  sent  abroad  to  be  instructed, 
and  who  come  back,  and  whose  words  are 
listened  to  by  those  who  exercise  influence  at 
the  head  of  the  government.  Therefor  it  is 
that  these  frontier  posts  of  civilization  are  so 
much  more  important  than  the  mere  numerical 
account  of  those  who  are  converted,  or  those 
who  yield  allegiance  to  the  foreign  missions 
seems  to  make  them,  and  I  speak  from  the 
standpoint,  as  I  say,  of  political  civilization  in 
such  a  country  as  China.  They  have  I  think 
some  3,000  missionaries  in  China.  The  num¬ 
ber  of  students  last  year  was  35,000.  They  go 
out  into  the  neighborhood,  and  they  cannot 
but  have  a  good  effect  throughout  that  great 
Empire,  large  as  it  is,  to  promote  the  ideas  of 
Christianity  and  the  ideas  of  civilization. 

Two  or  three  things  make  one  impatient 

8 


when  he  understands  the  facts.  One  is  the 
criticism  that  the  missionary  is  constantly  in¬ 
volving  governments  in  trouble  and  constantly 
bringing  about  war.  The  truth  is  that  West¬ 
ern  civilization  in  trade  is  pressing  into  the 
Orient,  and  the  agents  that  are  sent  forward, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  are  not  the  best  representa¬ 
tives  of  Western  civilization.  The  Americans 
and  Englishmen  and  others  who  live  in  the 
Orient  are  many  of  them  excellent,  honest, 
God-fearing  men,  but  there  are  in  that  set  of 
advance  agents  of  Western  civilization,  gen¬ 
tlemen  who  left  the  West  for  the  good  of  the 
West,  and  because  their  history  in  the  West 
might  prove  embarrassing  at  home.  More 
than  that,  where  there  are  honest,  hard-work¬ 
ing  tradesmen  and  merchants  attempting  to 
push  business  into  the  Orient,  their  minds  are 
constantly  on  business.  It  is  not  human  nature 
that  they  should  resist  the  temptations  that  not 
infrequently  present  themselves,  to  get  ahead 
of  the  Oriental  brother  in  business  transac¬ 
tions.  They  generally  are  quite  out  of  sym¬ 
pathy  with  a  spirit  of  brotherhood  toward  the 
Oriental  native.  Even  in  the  Philippines  that 
spirit  is  shown,  for  while  I  was  there  I  quite 
remember  hearing  on  the  streets  a  song  of  a 
gentleman  who  did  not  agree  with  my  view  of 
what  we  ought  to  do  by  the  Filipinos,  “He  may 
be  a  brother  of  William  H.  Taft,  but  he  ain’t 
no  brother  of  mine.”  That  is  the  spirit  that 
we  are  too  likely  to  find  among  the  gentlemen 
who  go  into  the  East  for  the  mere  purpose  of 
extending  trade. 

Then  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the  restraints 
of  public  opinion  that  one  finds  at  home  to 
keep  men  in  the  straight  and  narrow  path  are 

9 


loosened  in  the  Orient,  and  we  find  a  number 
of  foreigners  not  the  models  that  they  ought 
to  be  in  probity  and  morality.  They  look 
upon  the  native  as  inferior,  and  they  are  too 
likely  to  treat  him  with  contumely  and  insult. 
Hence  it  is  that  in  the  progress  of  civilization 
we  must  move  on  as  trade  moves  on  and  as 
the  foreign  missions  move  on. 

It  is  through  the  foreign  missions  that  we 
must  expect  to  have  the  true  picture  of  Chris¬ 
tian  brotherhood  presented  to  those  natives, 
the  true  spirit  of  Christian  sympathy.  In  the 
progress  of  civilization  you  can  not  over-esti¬ 
mate  the  immense  importance  of  Christian 
missions.  If  in  China  to-day  you  try  to  find 
out  what  the  conditions  are  in  the  interior, 
you  consult  in  Pekin  the  gentlemen  who  are 
suposed  to  know,  and  where  do  you  go?  You 
go  at  once  to  the  missionaries,  the  men  who 
have  spent  their  lives  far  advanced  into  the 
nation,  far  beyond  the  point  of  safety  if  an 
uprising  takes  place,  and  who  have  learned  by 
association  with  the  natives,  by  living  with 
them,  by  bringing  them  into  their  houses,  by 
helping  them  on  their  feet,  who  have  learned 
what  the  secret  of  Chinese  life  is ;  and  there¬ 
fore  it  is  that  the  only  reliable  books  that  you 
can  read  telling  you  exactly  the  condition  of 
Chinese  civilization,  are  written  by  these  for¬ 
eign  missionaries  who  have  been  so  much 
blamed  for  involving  us  in  foreign  wars.  It 
is  said  that  the  Boxer  war  was  due  to  the  in¬ 
terference  of  the  missionaries  and  the  feeling 
of  the  Chinese  against  the  Christian  religion 
as  manifested  and  exemplified  by  the  mission¬ 
aries.  That  is  not  true.  It  is  true  that  the 
first  outbreak  was  against  the  missionaries, 

io 


because  the  outbreak  was  against  foreign  in- 
teferences,  and  it  was  easiest  to  attack  those 
men  who  were  furthest  in  the  Chinese  nation. 
But  that  which  really  aroused  the  opposition 
of  the  Chinese  was  that  feeling  that  all  of  us 
Christian  nations  were  sitting  around  waiting 
to  divide  up  the  middle  kingdom  and  waiting 
to  get  our  piece  of  the  pork.  Now  that  is  the 
feeling  that  the  Chinese  have,  and  I  am  not 
prepared  to  say  that  there  was  not  some 
ground  for  the  suspicion. 

I  have  described  to  you  the  character  of 
some  Americans  in  the  cities  of  the  Orient, 
in  Shanghai  and  in  others.  It  has  improved. 
Our  consular  system  has  been  greatly  im¬ 
proved,  and  then  we  established  a  consular 
court  of  China  or  circuit  court  of  the  United 
States,  and  a  man  was  put  in  there  who  had 
been  attorney  general  in  the  Philippine  Is¬ 
lands.  He  had  some  experience  in  dealing 
with  these  waifs  that  come  around  up  the 
coast,  go  through  one  town  and  then  go  on 
up  to  another  town.  They  left  Manila  and 
then  after  they  left  Manila  they  spent  their 
time  in  condemning  the  government  of  Manila. 
We  called  them  in  Manila  “Shanghai  roos¬ 
ters. Wilfley  went  there  as  Judge  of  that 
court,  and  he  found  a  condition  of  an  Augean 
stable  that  needed  cleaning  out,  so  far  as  the 
Americans  were  concerned,  and  I  think  per¬ 
haps  in  this  audience  I  would  be  able  to  call 
on  witnesses  who  could  testify  to  the  condi¬ 
tion  of  immorality  that  was  carried  on  there 
under  the  protection  of  the  American  flag. 
We  have  extra-territorial  jurisdiction  in  a 
concession  made  by  the  Chinese  Government 
to  us.  Judge  Wilfley  went  to  work  and  be- 

n 


fore  he  got  through  the  American  flag  floated 
over  a  moral  community  and  in  so  doing  he 
had  the  sympathy  of  the  foreign  missionaries 
who  were  in  that  neighborhood.  But  he  has 
come  home,  and  when  you  are  a  good  many 
miles  away  facts  are  difficult  to  prove.  Pic¬ 
tures  are  easy  to  paint  in  lurid  colors  of  the 
tyranny  of  a  Judge  away  off  there,  and  he  has 
been  subjected  to  a  great  deal  of  criticism  on 
that  account.  I  want  to  give  my  personal  tes¬ 
timony  on  the  subject  and  in  favor  of  his 
course.  With  this  change  in  our  diplomatic 
relations  to  China,  by  doing  what  was  a  plain, 
honest  thing  to  do,  and  which  as  between  na¬ 
tions  seems  to  be  a  little  more  exceptional  per¬ 
haps  than  between  individuals — by  agreeing 
to  return  the  money  that  we  really  ought  not 
to  have  taken,  the  indemnity,  by  the  influence 
of  our  own  foreign  missionaries  there,  and  by 
the  belief  in  China  that  we  are  not  there  for 
our  exploitation  or  to  appropriate  jurisdiction 
territorially  or  otherwise,  I  think  we  stand 
well  in  China  to-day.  I  think  we  stand  in  such 
a  position  that  such  a  movement  as  this,  in 
order  to  raise  money  to  increase  the  number 
of  missionaries  and  the  number  of  nuclei  of 
Christianity  and  of  civilization  in  that  teeming 
population  of  450,000,000  is  better  to-day  than 
it  ever  was.  Therefore  such  a  movement  as 
this  must  enlist  the  sympathy  and  aid  of  all 
who  understand  the  great  good  that  these  self- 
denying  men  who  go  so  far  to  accomplish  their 
good  are  doing.  You  can  read  books  (  I  have 
read  them)  in  which  the  missions  are  described 
as  most  comfortable  buildings,  and  it  is  said 
that  they  are  living  much  more  luxuriously 
than  they  are  at  home,  and  therefore  that  they 

12 


don’t  call  for  our  support  or  sympathy.  It  is 
true  that  there  are  a  good  many  mission  build¬ 
ings  that  are  handsome  buildings.  I  have  seen 
them.  It  is  true  that  they  are  comfortable, 
but  they  ought  to  be  comfortable.  One  of  the 
things  that  you  have  got  to  do  with  the  Ori¬ 
ental  is  to  fill  his  eye  with  something  that  he 
can  see,  and  if  you  erect  a  great  missionary 
building  he  deems  the  coming  of  the  mission¬ 
ary  into  that  community  as  of  some  import¬ 
ance  and  the  missionary  societies  that  are  do¬ 
ing  that  and  are  building  their  own  buildings 
for  their  missionaries  are  following  a  very 
much  more  sensible  course  than  is  the  United 
States  in  denying  to  its  representatives  any¬ 
thing  to  shelter  them.  But  it  is  not  a  life  of 
ease;  it  is  not  a  life  of  comfort  and  luxury. 
I  don’t  know  how  many  have  felt  that  thing 
I  think  physicians  call  “nostalgia.”  I  don’t 
know  whether  you  have  experienced  that  sense 
of  distance  from  home,  that  being  surrounded 
by  an  alien  people,  that  impression  that  if  you 
could  only  have  two  hours  of  association  with 
your  old  friends  at  home,  if  you  could  only 
get  into  a  street  car  and  sit  down  or  hang  by 
a  strap,  in  order  to  be  near  your  friends.  I 
tell  you  when  you  come  back  after  an  absence 
of  five  or  ten  years,  even  the  strap  seems  a 
dear  old  memory.  Those  men  are  doing  a 
grand  good  work.  I  don’t  mean  to  say  that 
there  are  not  exceptions  among  them,  that 
sometimes  they  don’t  make  mistakes  and  some¬ 
times  they  don’t  meddle  in  something  which 
it  would  be  better  for  them  from  a  political 
standpoint  to  keep  out  of,  but  I  mean  as  a 
whole,  those  3,000  missionaries  in  China  and 
those  thousands  in  other  countries  worthily 

13 


represent  the  best  Christian  spirit  of  this 
country,  and  worthily  are  doing  the  work  that 
you  have  sent  them  out  to  do. 

I  would  like  to  talk  a  little  about  the  dif¬ 
ference  between  our  colonial  policy  and  its 
effect  in  China,  and  the  colonial  policy  of 
other  countries,  but  that  is  probably  not  ger¬ 
mane  to-night,  and  I  am  afraid  if  I  did  you 
would  think  I  was  using  this  opportunity  as 
a  means  of  airing  my  hobby. 

I  thank  you  for  the  opportunity  of  speaking 
on  behalf  of  this  body  of  Christian  men  and 
women  who  are  doing  a  work  which  is  in¬ 
dispensable  to  the  spread  of  Christian  civili¬ 
zation. 


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